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July 25 , 2020 . By Christian Tesfaye

THE OFFICE: DARKLY COMEDIC, LIGHTLY TRAGIC

The advantage that TV shows have over movies is the sheer amount of time at their disposal for character development. And there are few shows that have taken to exploiting this advantage with a sense of zeal that has rarely ever been achieved as has the American version of The Office. It is suppo...

April 4 , 2020 . By Christian Tesfaye

CONTAGION: A PROPHESY

Steven Soderbergh had been a prolific filmmaker who made movies on such a diverse range of subjects that he was at some point bound to predict the future. There will inevitably be a countless number of movies made about the Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. But unless they are focused - Fahrenheit 9/11 style - on how the administration running the richest and most powerful country in the world criminally botched up a manageable emergency, a general narrative of what went down will be redundant. There is already a movie made about the Coronavirus pandemic, however, and it is called C...

December 14 , 2019 . By

SCORSESIAN EPIC

No one in the history of cinema has become such an expert at taking a certain genre, organized crime, and expounding on it in ever more profound ways. The Irishman, starring Robert De Niro, Al Pacino and Joe Pesci, brings Scorsese to the genre he is most adept and recognizable for. It is a dark movie about terrible people, as in Goodfellas, Casino and The Departed, but tinged with far more guilt and remorse than Scorsese has allowed his characters to experience perhaps since only Mean Streets. The Irishman digs into the story of the infamous labour union leader Jimmy Hoffa. The film is t...

November 30 , 2019 . By

FROZEN 2:COULD HAVE BEEN WORSE

To find out that Frozen - the cheesiest movie since human kind discovered cheese - would get a sequel almost felt like losing a loved one. I did not only have to endure the high-pitched, monotonous monstrosity that is the chart topper “Let It Go” for what felt like years on end as every little girl hummed it into tedium. I would also have to review it. Technically, fairy tale-inspired movies such as Frozen should end after a single adventure. The characters would endure a transformative experience that leads to their emotional maturity and then they get to live happily ever after. Life...

Movie Review

October 16 , 2021

THE KOREAN CINEMATIC 'INVASION'

Every once in a while, there is a TV show that goes viral. Shortly after COVID-19, it was Tiger King, an almost surreal mini-series about exotic zookeepers. Now, it is Squid Game, a Korean thriller pr...

October 9 , 2021

NO TIME TO DIE

It was neither shaken nor stirred but brewed at an upscale ceremony Heineken Ethiopia held at the Sheraton Addis. The occasion was a screening of the brand new 25th outing to the most celebrated spy i...

September 26 , 2021

FREE GUY - THE ANTI-MATRIX

For the first decade and a half of his career, Ryan Reynolds was an actor who could not figure out who he wanted to be. He dabbled in action movies (Smokin’ Aces, Safe House), superhero flicks (Gree...

September 10 , 2021

SHANG CHI: MARVEL''S REPRESENTATION TENTPOLE

Representation and fairness – those are the big words in Hollywood these days. A century after it was discovered, cinema is reckoning with its relationship with people who are neither white nor male...

September 4 , 2021

OZ: WHEN NOT IN KANSAS ANYMORE

Before Game of Thrones, The Sopranos and The Wire, there was Oz, the TV show that started it all for Home Box Office (HBO). But not only for HBO, it was one of the first experiments with a TV series w...

May 15 , 2021

HOPKINS SHINES THROUGH THE TWILIGHT OF THE FATHER

The darling of the last Academy Awards was Nomadland, a slow travel movie about homelessness directed by a Chinese Ethnic. A few years ago, Mank, a film about the writing of Citizen Kane, would have b...

May 8 , 2021

GORY KOMBAT, MORTAL DIALOGUE

Forget the fall of the Berlin Wall, the death of Princess Diana, the dot-com bubble, the rise and fall of grunge rock or the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal. Nothing screams “the nineties” like Mortal Ko...

April 30 , 2021

PROMISING YOUNG WOMAN TAKES THE CAKE, THEN THROWS IT IN EVERYONE'S FACE

Last year was not a bad time for movies. True, several major releases were postponed as a result of the Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. But these were largely big productions that had cost a lo...

January 23 , 2021

SHADOW IN THE CLOUDS, WOMEN UNDER PATRIARCHY

Some movies require a specific mood and environment for watching. Sometimes, we want a movie to not be too complicated, but easy to understand, the sort where the story takes the audience on a fun...

January 3 , 2021

SOUL, QUITE SOULFUL

Suppose Freud’s theories into the human psyche were more sanitised of his obsession with sexuality and his predictions and understanding were more life-affirming. In that case, it might have resembl...

December 26 , 2020

On the Nolanite Tradition of Time, Reality: Taken Too Far

After months of waiting following its release in the West, Tenet has finally hit theatres here in Ethiopia, showing in malls in at least two locations, at Century Mall and Biresh CinePlus. It is on...

November 29 , 2020

TRIAL OF THE CHICAGO SEVEN

It is often in history that the story of the present could be told colourfully, and perhaps even meaningfully. There is nothing like seeing our present through the lens of yesterday. It makes us more...

October 31 , 2020

BORAT: 'VERY NICE' MOVIE AMERICANA

Borat Sagdiyev - the Kazakh who stole our hearts with his unfathomable levels of anti-Semitism, sexism and racism - is back. And as our current state of politics would have it, his experiences are eve...

September 19 , 2020

Residue: Spiritual Sequel to Teza

Residue is the spiritual sequel to the acclaimed Teza. The latter is a movie by Ethiopia’s single most acclaimed filmmaker, Haile Gerima, while Residue is the directorial debut of his son, Mera...

September 6 , 2020

SWEETNESS IN THE SIDE-STORY

The momentousness of the latter half of the 20th century in Ethiopia is stark in the popular imagination, especially to non-Ethiopians. It was attended by the fall of one of the oldest monarchies in t...

July 10 , 2020

A Space Odyssey: Lessons on What Makes for an Endlessly Repeatable Movie

There are movies and then there are pieces of art that have defined what cinema is. One of those movies is, inarguably, at least if we go by critic’s best-movies-of-all-time picks, 2001: A Space Ody...

Columns

Commentaries | Jan 15,2022

Peace Process within Arm's Reach. Beware Spoilers!

Foes and friends of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed (PhD) agree that his administration is full...

Editorial | January 15 , 2022

Diaspora Homecoming Breathes Life into Businesses. Will It Last?

On the verge of losing his job as a sales officer at Ayat (Real Estate) Share Company, Wak...

Featured | January 15 , 2022 . By SAMUEL BOGALE

Liquidity Crunch Casts Menacing Shadow Over Banking Industry

When the central bank imposed a freeze on collateral-based loans last August, there was no...

Agenda | January 15 , 2022 . By HAWI DADHI

HIBRET STANDS TALL & HIGH

Melaku Kebede (leftmost), president of Hibret Bank, was all smiles late last week as he sh...

Fortune News | January 15 , 2022

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COVID-19 UPDATES: All the stories and commentaries on Coronavirus, in one place

THE OFFICE: DARKLY COMEDIC, LIGHTLY TRAGIC